Rod Serling's "The Shelter"

Rod Serling's The Shelter

         The Episode of The Twilight Zone titled “The Shelter” is directly and unremovably relevant to the Cold War Era of the United States of America. This is evident in the way that the show itself, though in a roundabout way, comments directly on the main idea of the cold war: the looming threat of nuclear war and annihilation. The show in unremovable from the Cold War, in the way that it’s airing affected the public and it’s view on such a threat, as Mrs. M. W. (Elaine) Bradshaw comments in her letter to Rod Serling, “the medium of T.V. reaches more people” than any one person could do on their own. Which thus can cause a quicker and more uniform change in the public opinion than would happen from this same message being broadcast by smaller groups, and lesser known people.
         The viewing public responded in varying ways to the airing of this episode of The Twilight Zone; some saw it as a commentary on the absurdity of the nuclear scare of the age, while others saw it as a call to arms validating the need for everyone to build bomb shelters. Joseph Smyth, one such viewer, sent a letter to Rod Serling, stating,

My father has been telling people that we should prepare for the worst because of the children who have not seen the world or enjoy it but mostly people just laugh and say it will not possibly happen. We ourselves have been storing food, water, tools, medicine and clothing in our cellar....I wish the government would produce a play like yours for interesting the people in defense of their country.

Even though there were many who responded to the show with such a conservative rhetoric, many others responded with a more liberal approach. This is evidenced in this excerpt from a letter from Mrs. M. W. (Elaine) Bradshaw, “Like so many others, I am hopeful that this irrational panic wave that is sweeping our Southern California will pass and people will regain their good sense.”
Mrs. Elaine Bradshaw’s perception, more-so than Mr. Joseph Smyth’s, seemed to mesh more with Mr. Rod Sterling’s intentions in presenting this play. Rod Serling’s intentions in presenting this play seem to be less to incite fear, panic, and paranoia, and more to incite rational thought and consideration. Rod Serling says as much in a letter to Mrs. Bradshaw, when he says, “I think television serves its best function when it tries to make a legitimate comment on the social and political problems of our time. I felt very strongly that there was a need for this show.”
         It is my sincere belief that Rod Serling was trying to make people think rationally and critically about the implications of both this new nuclear age and the panic thus resulting from such an age. I do not believe that he was either trying to encourage any sort of violent or politcal action against anyone, but rather, that people think and think rationally of that which may happen. As he says at the end of the show, “No moral...no message...no prophetic tract. Just a simple statement of fact. For civilization to survive...the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight’s very small exercise in logic...from The Twilight Zone.” Rod Serling uses this show, and the medium of Television, to show to his fellow countrymen how in the event of a nuclear scare we as humans have a tendency to devolve into animal like savages, losing our civility, and thus, the exact thing which we are trying to preserve in such a situation, and if humanity loses its civility in its fight to prove the best civilization, then we are naught but a bunch of animals playing at human games.
         Rod Serling was and still is a great, and influential man both as an artist, and as a human being. As an artist, he was quite a controversial figure. He was repeatedly quoted as being against censorship in the media, at least to the degree that was present at the time in network television. In the book, Television and the Red Scare: The Video Road to Vietnam by J. Fred MacDonald, it states that according to Rod Sterling, “TV restricted too much what a writer could say.” This sentiment is also shown in the text of a prospective TV Guide article, where in response to the question:

There is a good deal of complaining today that writers’ ‘rights’ are being violated, because they cannot say what they want to in their scripts - and that ‘censorship’ is keeping these scripts off the air. What is my view on this type of complaint?

Rod Serling responds in part:

[T]here are...aspects of drama which should be inviolate - not the least of which is the free expression of an idea....It may be expedient in a commercial medium to tie on a few bits of restrictive addendas to this freedom, but however you slice it, whatever name you give it, however it’s classified, this is still an abridgement of freedom of expression and should be soberly contemplated....And no rationale in the world, even the concerns of the sponsor, can excuse the alteration or dilution of an idea.

Much of his controversy came not from his objection to censorship, but rather, what he wrote that people deemed worthy of being censored. Many of his works deal with controversial subject like race, and war-time conduct.
         As a person, Rod Serling was a genial man, who loved his daughters and dogs no matter how many times they chewed the cusions and relieved themselves in the upstairs hallway, the dogs that is, not the daughters.

Note: all quotes are from the personal papers of Rod Serling housed at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.